I think Americans who are not Buddhist coming in to Buddhism expect things to run as they do in the dominant Christian community. Basically, anyone can start a new church, and it succeeds or fails based on whether folks enjoy going there or not. There would naturally be assumptions that there are programs that lead to being able to officially help people in their practice, such as a pastor in a protestant church, and longer training programs that lead to being a minister--a profession. People can understand such programs based on coursework.

Ambitious people would naturally want to start to "ascend" in whatever system towards professionalism. The idea of making money while not having to work a regular job is appealing, but there are all kinds of other motivations at work, too--positive and negative.

These ideas are not congruent with my Asian teachers ideas about how things should work in a Buddhist system. In our system, all-be-it Tibetan, one would really need to both have realization (and concomitant compassion), knowledge, a teacher's personality, but also utter faith and devotion to one's teacher and lineage. None of this can be guaranteed will happen in an entire lifetime of study and practice!

So, there is a disconnect there that comes up continually in a lot of Buddhist organizations, where American students feel they are owed a teaching credential after a certain number of years. Again and again they create their own centers, appoint themselves as teachers, and create organizations that are closer to a protestant Christian model in this way.

In Buddhism, generally speaking, there are no special rules for establishing yourself as a teacher. Technically, a small group of monks can establish a separate community without problem. In fact, even a single influential monk or nun with substantial followers can start a new monastery or even a new tradition. Lay people are free to do as they want. Nobody owns the Dharma and nobody rules the Sangha. What really matters in the end is whether one can get the necessary support, either from the general laity or from political power, that will provide the material basis of Dharma centres, monasteries, publishing, etc.

"There is no such thing as the real mind. Ridding yourself of delusion: that's the real mind."(Sheng-yen: Getting the Buddha Mind, p 73)

It is true that "religion for a living" can be appealing. If you know how to play it (think televangelist), but it many ways it can be a very difficult and demanding vocation.

But at the same time demands on clergy are extremely high. A newspaper in Canada did a survey of work hours per week in different professions and right near the top was "minister". If it is a large congregation one is expected to be available to the families of the church to provide counselling in times of death and crisis, advice during times of spiritual doubt etc.

I wouldn't be surprised if the same holds true for many ordained sangha in Buddhist centres. Certainly the Viet Namese monks and nuns I know seem to work non-stop, attending daily services as well as non-stop cooking, cleaning, counselling and event organizing.

In Western Tibetan Buddhist centres for monks and nuns often the only official roles available for those who are not senior or enough or qualified to act as teachers is Centre Director or Program Co-ordinator. In centres of a decent size these are both extremely demanding jobs that demand many hours of work and also lots of patience in terms of dealing with people.

In Buddhist centres in the West for the most part if you live and eat at a centre you will have to "earn your keep". It is not like in Asia where the society accepts to support a few full time practitioners due to culture.

In order to ensure my mind never comes under the power of the self-cherishing attitude,I must obtain control over my own mind. Therefore, amongst all empowerments, the empowerment that gives me control over my mind is the best,and I have received the most profound empowerment with this teaching.-Atisha Dipamkarabrtsal ba'i bkhra drin

If you are going trying to persuade people like me--who don't know the situation first hand--of your point of view, these kind of blog posts are not going to do that. They make the writer look angry and vindictive... not appealing qualities in the world of Buddhism.

My suggestion is to have a friend for whom English is a first language help you write a straight forward account of why you left this teacher and center -- just the facts, not laced with anger. You can put in how it affected you personally at the end.. what the effect was on you emotionally, physically, economically, and so on. If you are trying to prevent people from becoming his student, that will have more of the effect you want.

SonofRage wrote:Looks like a lot of the same information. Even getting through the poor English, the arguments presented aren't the most coherent in the world.

Yeah I just tried to read it again, it`s your reading not my writing. Most of it was from Sweeping Zen and copied pasted. so try harder. And I am not trying to make anyone think anyway, just see the truth. Some can`t deal with it it looks to me. I can care less about what anyone thinks of me, i know where i stand and i don`t have to make up documents and names every-week to take that stand. Funny how the Western Mind jumps straight to the crap of the matter and not to the facts of what is being said. Go get ordained by him, live a happy life with them all, it`s like the army for some and not others. So funny you jump to me not being American, must been living here to long? LOL....If you don`t think i`m a Buddhist wait till you ordain with lPaul and he tells everyone to frak themselves all day when he doesn`t feel good...LOL.

I think it's obvious you have been hurt by FMZO and it shows in your posts. And it's nothing personal, but your posts have some grammar and spelling errors which make them difficult to follow sometimes. I'm dislexic myself and take a long time to post a comment so I can go over everything, correct spelling mistakes etc (google chrome is best for this)

Thanks Its this PC and the writing at night by the light of the screen a lot I have to bend it down to see the key board and up to read it where I`m at. Sometimes i`m using a USB smart Bro wifi on the back of a bus too, that doesn`t help. i put this windows 8 in my Acer s 3 and it just jumps around on me and to be honest, i`m jumping from bus to jeepney and everything doing this crap. So I am sorry for the typo`s. Plus FMZO had control of my web site and blogs, so there was a lot of transitioning for me to do as well. I had to write the web site people to get mu site traffic back and my PayPal really gave me crap over Paul. The quote from the Ven. karuna posted here is what through me really. he left the Order along time ago do to the Vinaya rules they go by, he wanted to marry as most of them, so there was only a few monks left. i talked to him, and i can not see him saying that after the talk i had with the Ven. karuna Dharma, and her not knowing Paul using her name and Dharma seal stamp on ordination papers. I had to show her for her to understand, she gone on a 3 year retreat, knows nothing of any of this with him. For me, that is the main issues, among all the threats to not just me but others by so called monks. i told them i was done, every morning i wake up to their crap. So yeah i do get pissed. they almost cost me in about 4000,000 PhP in a rice project i have do to their IRS nonprofit crap I knew nothing about until it was showed to me and not by them. They brought a lot of harm to a lot of Filipino`s and my students, almost killed everything i had in place for them. I have all my money out in a new zen center for them and plane tickets for a retreat. I just had to pay out a few grand USD for the needs to plant in the rice fields for jobs do to the big scandal that went down over here and everyone losing their investments in oil to the Muslims in Mindanao.You know Pauls say to all that, frak them!! Nice Zen master man. That all i have to say, you can take my robe and my labels and stick them all, that diesn`t make you the person you are.

SonofRage wrote:I'm really saddened by all this. I was hoping this would be cleared up in a good way. The people I've interacted with at Five Mountain have all been very nice and I hate to think that they are getting shammed.

Sunya Vajra Karuna,, I can not see saying this at all. He`s one not to get in the middle of anything. And he for one knows the truth if he was there, my God he spend 20 years going through this school for real and living and breathing the Vinaya till he wanted to get married and had to leave. which i understand totally. But this he is way to smart of a man to post this. i have a lot of respect for him, he`s real, he would not get in the middle of this just as the Ven. Chitta didn`t.

Hey, can you guys take down the Sweeping Zen Interview post I put up, it seems to have him in some very hot water and we talked this morning i should of thought of his safety. I woke up this morning with him ( Adam Tebbe ) from Sweeping Zen freaking out about the heat he is in now. I wouldn`t want something to happen to him so can you please for safety reasons remove it and this post. Thank you.

Sunya wrote:Hi, my name is Chester, my Buddhist name is Sunya Vajra Karuna, Thich Tam-Khong. My ordination came after five years of study, and my ordination to teach came after six more years under my teachers guidance. Our order requires at least ten years of study before being allowed to teach independently. After this, If given a red robe one is given permission to open a center or temple and act as abbot of it. We stress independence. We will not interfere with any other teacher to teach as they will. They have been tested with time and carefully nurtured. We trust these saplings and push them out to spread the Dharma.With that said, I have met the Five Mountain Zen Order and Paul Lynch on line. I have investigated the group and Paul. I find them to be authentic and I am happy to join them in their efforts. I will add my linage to his in the hope that it will help us move beyond historical bigotry just for the sake of traditions. Slavery was a pretty popular cultural tradition and so is sexism and denial of handicapped, hell even ugly people aren't allowed ordination in most old schools. Dust on the mirror. Blow it off and get on with it. These people are sincere, and I for one am happy to help them dump these historical anchors.

It would be very good to know if this post was in fact written by Sunya Vajra Karuna, Thich Tam-Khong, or by someone pretending to be him.

Need help getting on retreat? Want to support others in practice? Pay the Dana for Dharma forum a visit...

I was sent an email by the head monk in charge of the IBMC as the Ven. Karuna Dharma is in Sacramento this week. this is what was told to me just this morning.

" I've seen Chitta's photo on the Facebook Founders Page of IBMC... (which has nothing to do with the IBMC Facebook page)... Karuna is in the first stages of Alzheimers not sure how much advice she is able to give... The college of Buddhist Studies seems to have been taken over by a new person... Not sure why or how... But maybe you can find a link online."

So with this being said i am asking for anyone's help in finding out how Paul lynch took over the school of IBMC, the founder and owner being the Ven. Karuna herself. For-which seems to know nothing of this after reading this email. I have been given a task by the head monk to find out how this came about to be, no one at IBMC even knows, not even the owner and founder of the school now for 42 years. All her work has been some how stolen. being an IT Tech I looked at the page coding and the metta verification code is beforethought of Paul Lynch. All I ask for was the Ven. karunas where about`s for real and a contact #. Now I know the Global adm doesn`t want to disclose this on your site, but i am asking, as I have been tasked by the head monk for any help in finding out how this take over happen. Maybe he just stole the site info. and made a new site which would of cost a lot of money that he doesn`t have so he says, who is backing this? This should put some light on if the post posted by Ven. karuna prior was legit or not. If he is a dharma teacher of IBMC and the IBMC doesn`t even know about the details, then how could he? Why hasn`t Paul come forward with some details and prove of true ownership and rights? Instead being looked at by the IRS and shut down by PayPal for nonprofit fraud. In being given this task I did find this link that leads us down another road in a way of some insight..[url]http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id ... _pymk_name[/url]

Paul was given inka and transmission by Ji Bong. He has all the appropriate authorization papers and I have personally seen them. More importantly, he's a wonderful teacher who gives of himself and his time without asking for anything in return.

So...what's the truth?

Truth is he forges papers and uses modern methods to give false ordination as he did me. Your paperwork means nothing anywhere but under Paul Lynch, he never received any transmition and he was ask to leave and is not aloud to formally teach. He just ordained into another tradition, when you take ordination it says and you swear with your life while under that tradition you can not follow another masters teaching without the approval of said master. His master in the Korean tradition is who? And where was he at last weeks ordination into the Vinaya Vietnamese tradition for-which he changed yet again his dharma name. He gave me ordination into the FMZO in June of this year when I started the college of the Ven. Karuna Dharma`s, i excepted his fake and made up paperwork dated back to 2010 of Feb. when i was at IBMC taking real Precepts under the Vinaya with the Ven. Karuna, but it was the only way i or he would let me into the Zen college of my teachers that he took over some how and all of IBMC is waiting to hear how he did that, its news to them at the temple. His fake paperwork i have ordains me at within days of my true ordination. Hehas no paperwork to prove anything that he has not technically made up himself as he did mine. i just said okay to play along so i could go to my teachers school the Ven. Karuna and I even talked to a real Heir in the Korean tradition about it and he said to learn what I can and that even the path of a crooked figure leads to the moon, for me not to feel like i made a mistake or guilty for it that it is his karma. So all t hat paperwork crap is just that crap, he makes it up and if you want me to show you I have no problem. i will cut and past to this site and post and all of you can see the dates for yourselves. He says he was ordaining me in " this is to certify that on the 2nd day of February in the year 2010,Travis Lee Adams (Original Name), Mùjīn Cíbēi 穆金慈悲(Buddhist Name), --------------NOTE:" he even took it to change my name with even asking here"was granted authority as a Zen Priest (Sunim) and took Sixteen Precepts at the International Buddhist Meditation Centerin the Five Mountain Zen Order.

Wonji Dochong, Guiding Teacher"

I took ordination with the Ven Karuna Dharma Feb. 6th, 2010, I wasn`t even in LA on this day. i was still in Sarasota Florida on the other side of the country. He wasn`t even part of the IBMC and still isn`t to this day He states here he gave me 16 Precepts on the 2nd, my flight left Tampa to LA two days before the the 6th on the 4th, i went to dinner with the Ven. Karuna Dharma and the ADM at IBMC the evening of the 6th and was back in Florida Sarasota home on the 8th of Feb.. This guys full of crap!!